


Our Decay

by GothamNights



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 80s power ballad, Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Minor Character Death, reupload, sneaky bonnie Tyler reference, total eclipse of the heart moment, zades, zelena deserves to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 13:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20426540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothamNights/pseuds/GothamNights
Summary: Hades loves Zelena, but will his love and thirst for power destroy any chance they might have at a happy ending? SPOILERS for 5x16 and 5x21.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reuploaded from my Fanfiction.net account

Our Decay

(Hades)

She comes to me, limping across my destroyed Storybrooke, tears staining her cheeks and a look on her face I never thought I'd see. A broken look. Those so called heroes had ripped mother and daughter apart and broken her beautiful, defiant sprit. I clench my fists in fury but quickly unclench them as she comes closer.

'Hello Hades.' She says softly and I hate how weak she sounds. The person standing before me seems to just wear Zelena's face but not what made me love her. Not her personality. Not who she is.

'Zelena.' I call out. I am unsure as to whether she is really here, but even after her initial rejection of me, my heart still softly flutters at her possible presence here.

'You know I was looking for you.' I say. She looks a little shocked and my mind wanders briefly thinking who else I was looking for. Her baby. Her baby to bring her down here. But by a god's curse or gift, she is here as well.

You were looking for my baby.' She says voice harsh and protective, those maternal instincts not thinking of anything else but protecting that child.

'I was just a happy accident. She adds and I exhale. She was more than just a happy, lucky accident; she was a blessing, a sun in a dense storm, a flower of hope in a place of decay and destruction.

'Yes, yes you were.' I say the words out my mouth before I can stop them, but those words are the truest statement I feel I have uttered in eons.

'When I heard you fell through my little portal, I really was looking for you.' I gently say scared if I speak to fast or pour too much emotion into my voice she will run away scared. I hate the way my brain views the emerald skinned, well pale skinned, beauty as fragile, now a far cry from the Wicked Witch who dominated Oz and instilled fear into everyone's heart but my own.

'I know. I thought I'd make it easy. I know you want my child for your time travel spell.' I try not to flinch a flicker of hope had been lit inside of me, but at the proclamation that I would be as cruel as those pretentious heroes and separate mother and child, digs a knife deeper still into my unbeating heart and extinguishes that hope.

'If you touch her I will demolish you.' I steel my gaze towards her face and examine it meticulously. Those words, those words of fire and determination light up her face and eyes creating a beautiful visage of the Zelena I know and would die for. But just in case she threatens me further I rush to speak.

'Now there's no need for that.' I say indicating her raised hand. She looks shocked but does as I ask and lowers her hand.

'I wouldn't hurt you.' She panics but I know that for her sake and the sake of my sanity she needed to hear those words, which are truer than any light of day that I can recall.

'I never would've hurt you.' Her eyes grow misty as I picture her remembering how our last encounter ended, my heart broken and her thirst for love and vengeance only growing worse as her heart was broken again. She is about to cry again tears threatening to fall. She holds them at bay clearly not wanting to make herself look weaker and more vulnerable to a person she has convinced herself is her foe. I need to say these next words remind her of that encounter and how I would do anything, anything if only for her heart and her love.

'That's the thing about true love' and I note how she visibly pales at the words, the thing that has she has been constantly denied, 'it endures, it can't be broken.' She shakes her head softly and I know in her mind she is saying it can. After all she has never had it, no one has ever loved her, wanted her, needed her... She looks at me hopeful and I can read her thoughts. But maybe I can. Maybe the Lord of Death can.

'So... sending Rumplestiltskin after my daughter had nothing to do with revenge on your brother?' she sounds sceptical and honestly I don't blame her. I still desire revenge, I wake up in the night the only thought clouding my mind is stabbing my brother with an Olympian Crystal and watching the life bleed out his eyes. But with her in the picture revenge doesn't matter as much. She can learn to love me and together we shall have our own kingdom and everyone, even that accursed Dark One will kneel at our feet, nothing more than a submissive lap dog.

'Zelena' I say the name tasting sticky sweet on my tongue, 'I was trying to rescue her from those miserable heroes for you.' I say and that light is burning bright again. I was trying to reunite mother and babe surely that is a sign of pure devotion.

'I didn't know you were there' I say honestly and my head droops. I hadn't know when I should of. Perhaps I had made her life worse. After all those petty heroes were or are searching for my weakness and here she is, shining with the luminance of a thousand stars, more breathtaking than any nymph. She closes her eyes regret shining in those stormy orbs and lowers her head in submission.

'Despite everything I've done' she cautions and I wince thinking of the bitter rejection I had received. She sees this and gives me a tentative half smile.

'You've loved me all this time.' She states and gazes at me, understanding dawning on that face. I smile. I will love her till the ends of time itself and should anyone try and harm her, separate us from one another they will know the wrath of a thousand gods, the wrath of death itself upon them. But I can see her gaze flickering to the desolate Storybrooke around them and I realise she needs to know the extent of my admiration and love for her, my beautiful angel.

'Look around you, I mean aren't you curious why this place looks like StoryBrooke' I chuckle. She follows my gaze as my arm sweeps around the broken clock tower and the pretty little side streets that form this small unmapped town in Maine.

'I did it for you.' I let the declaration linger in the air between us and the full weight of what I've given her, what I have left to give crashes down around her.

'I saw how much you wanted to cast the dark curse' at this her eyes glaze over and I wonder in contempt and jealously if she is thinking of Rumplestiltskin 'to get everything your sister had.' At this she strengthens defiance returning to her as she thinks of everything her sister got that she was denied. A mother, a father, love, a family, wealth, jewels, a lifetime of promise that Zelena never got. She scoffs gently and then looks into my ungodly eyes again, eyes that are positively aflame with love for this woman.

'You gave me my very own Storybrooke.' At this I eagerly nod and she looks radiant again no longer broken. Not anymore and whilst she is in my arms never again.

'I gave you what you wanted. What she had.' What Regina had, she glowers, what Regina didn't even want or deserve. I see her look at it again and feel I have to mention the imperfections that decorate this place

'It's not perfect. The Underworld is a place of well destruction.' She gazes at me again all emotion masked beneath that mask however I push on.

'Despite my best intentions, things don't grow here. They decay.' She looks at me quizzically evidently wondering where this will go. At that look, that moment, love in my heart and not an evil thought in my mind, body or soul I say the words.

'But it's our decay.'


	2. If Only You Loved Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zelena must make a choice between the man she loves, and the sister she has always envied.  
Spoilers for 5x16, 5x21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again another reupload from Fanfiction.net but this time from Zelena's POV

If only you loved me

(Zelena)

I gaze down at our beautifully inked faces and my slender fingertips graze my true love's face. My True Love. I still marvel at the words, am still shocked that one could love me enough to give up anything for me. But there that man is on the other side of the wall waiting for me, waiting for us to be a family. But... those traitorous words drip through my blood like poison. Knowing that maybe my sister, even after we reconciled has been plotting to steal my happiness away behind my back. I tighten my fingers around the top of the crisp paper and it starts to bend as my fury grows. How could she? We are meant to be together. He loves me, loves me like no one ever will. Even she initially played the role of the caring sister but that soon dissolved into a motherly figure trying to force me to believe Hades is the bad guy. I groan in frustration and stalk inside ready to confront Hades now that Emma has left and there is no one to bother us.

I am so focused on Hades, on the Olympian Crystal he is wielding, the thirst for vengeance that is lighting up his eyes, that I don't notice Regina at first. But when I do look, I wish I hadn't. Tears are streaming down her sculpted cheekbones and to her chest she is cradling Robin Hood. Even though this man separated me and my daughter he is still the father of my child and for Regina... I can't think of the pain she feels. Regina wastes no time in blaming Hades and I'm torn between them both. Regina speaks of how Hades has been lying to me since I started his heart, since I served my purpose, and how Hades will continue this charade. I want to believe her but I know that they still wanted to kill my love no matter what she says. Why else would she be here?

Hades tells me he kept them in the Underworld for me, for us. He didn't want to hurt them but if they came through the portal alive he would kill them all for a kingdom. I fight with every breath against this. We don't need a kingdom. We have love and potential and I don't need anything my sister has anymore. I have true love. I have Hades. He is enough for me and revenge doesn't matter. I wasted too many years of my life on jealousy and vengeance that I don't want it to tear me and Hades apart. But with honesty and pain he says the words that tore me apart the first time he spoke them.

'Remember what I told you. There is no better revenge than having it all.' Regina sees him distracted by his weakness and pounces. She knocks him over and the Olympian crystal is within my reach. Regina tries to grab it, but without thinking I snatch it out from under her, clutching the raw power in my hands. Hades looks frightened now and I am too. If it came down to it would I kill him, if I had too? Would I do it even if it cost me my happy ending? I am conflicted and torn and confused. I look towards the sister that only just started loving me now on the path to redemption and I look at the man who loved me before I even had the chance to be redeemed. He chides me gently, using soft words to convince me to kill Regina. We could have the entirety of Storybrooke without the heroes. I could have my daughter and let her live free without having to share her. I would be rid of Rumple and Regina and Emma and the Pirate and it would just be Hades and I. My name spoken softly and with great care pulls I out of my daydream and I face my sister my eyes misty and my lip quivering. Regina takes a different approach. She tells me how she stood up for me, believed in me when no one else did and I want to believe her as well.

She tells me how she wanted so badly for me to find love and says, insinuating it gently, that her desperation for my true love to come along had maybe pushed me into the arms of someone who didn't love but merely used me as means of escape.

'Robin died to protect me. That's what true love is. Sacrifice.' She says it so passionately and her voice breaks mid sentence. I believe love is sacrifice. Robin sacrificed himself for Regina and Hades sacrificed a contract for me.

'But Hades won't give up a single thing for you. As he said he wants it all.' She is right and I hate to admit that. Hades tries and tries to change my mind. He reminds me of everything my sister had rubbing salt into wounds as he mentions how I had nothing. I shiver and tears are rolling down my cheeks. My weakness is revealed and bleeding grotesquely into the room visible to both sister and love. I am struggling to breath and when I do it comes out shaky and like I am hyperventilating. I am shivering and shaking simultaneously and I raise the Olympian Crystal above my head silencing them both.

'All I ever wanted was love. You said that was enough for you. But now I realize. NOTHING EVER WILL BE!'

I stab him in the chest, gasping and sobbing as he reaches for me and chokes out my name. He is slowly turning into blue smoke and then he disintegrates into a pile of dust and ash. Appropriate for a man of blue flame. I cover my face with my hand as what I've done hits me. Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I'm only falling APART.


End file.
